Voice of Experience: Aamena Khan, Partner, PwC Middle East

Aamena KhanAamena Khan’s background is not reflective of a traditional career consultant.

She began her professional life in industry, starting in Washington D.C and 15 years ago in 2004, she followed her career to the Middle East with her son, a student at New York University. Today, Khan is a Financial Services Consulting Partner focusing on People and Organization at PwC Middle East, and more recently, was appointed COO of Financial Services, a huge area of investment for the firm.

Khan is an accomplished professional with over 20 years of industry and consulting experience in multiple other industries including aviation, technology, media, logistics and higher education. She is also a subject matter expert on organizational design, change management, employee engagement, leadership development, succession planning and workforce nationalization. However, in the present moment, her passion is fuelled by the limitless possibilities of FinTech and the level of disruption financial institutions are experiencing.

Embracing her profession in consulting today, Khan recognizes that she can make a greater impact as a consultant than when she was in industry. She is excited about working with and leading some of the world’s best and brightest talent, in the face of extremely challenging environments and opportunities.

“I am learning more now than I ever have over the course of my career,” she shares. Her passion for learning is clearly what drives her excitement – energized by ongoing growth and development in all areas of her business, while leading with the attributes of a true leader. “I don’t believe in old school leadership such as command and control. My role is not to be the person in the room who knows everything, it is my role to listen and understand the client’s problem and bring the best people from around the network together to solve their most important problems. For me, it is very important to give other people a chance to be part of the story and to make their mark too – there is a greater purpose in everything we do, than simply ourselves.”

Khan joined PwC as a director and impressively made partner within two years. Coming from outside the firm and profession, this was an incredible achievement for Khan while also acknowledging the firm’s commitment to advocating and promoting different archetypes of leaders and partners.

As a strong advocate for gender balance, Khan also leads the firm’s Women in Tech initiative for the region, which is based on three pillars: promoting, advocating digital thinking in the way PwC teams conduct their work and contributing to community outreach programs by connecting with schools to reach the grassroots level of tomorrow’s talent. She is also working on a digital platform that centers around employee engagement and related predictive analytics.

Her inspirational leadership style is clearly a reflection of a very self-aware and grounded person: “Success comes in many different forms, I know that now. I used to see scope of responsibility and the size of budgets or teams I managed as the only indicators of my success, but today my definition of success is very different. Today I am driven by opportunities to learn, do interesting work and have fun! To work in line with my values, to give good people the opportunity to have a voice – I don’t need to be the person in the room to have all the answers, my role is to empower others. This is far more powerful and enables us all to be successful.”

In her journey to be successful, she also embraces failure. When asked what advice she would give to her younger self, Khan replied: “Don’t be so brutal – if you don’t show yourself some humanity, how will you give it to others? If you fail, fail fast and move on but more importantly, don’t avoid failure – don’t stagnate in a safe zone. Step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself because when you do that, that’s when magic happens for you and those around you.”

Magic, humanity, continuous learning, fun and excitement; Khan clearly proves that these can be our most effective capabilities and emotions to be a strong, ambitious, successful and driven leader of the future.

/by

Can Supporting Other Women Be Dangerous for Your Career?

Guest Contributed by Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris

Approximately 85 percent of senior corporate executives and corporate board members are white men, a percentage that has remained basically unchanged for many years.

An important key to effectively combatting the gender bias that typically accompanies such a high concentration of male power is the active support, mentoring, and advocacy by women for the advancement of other women.

Negative Consequences of Advocating for Other Women

Unfortunately, when women actively work to advance the careers of other women, they often suffer personal career penalties. This is made clear in two-related studies published together in 2017 in The Academy of Management Journal. In the first study, the researchers surveyed 350 executives about their diversity-valuing behaviors—behaviors that sought to actively promote a demographic balance within their organizations’ leadership ranks. The researchers found that no executive, female or male, received higher ratings for competence or performance when they engaged in such behaviors. But when women executives engaged in diversity-valuing behaviors, they received much worse competence and performance ratings than did women who did not actively promote gender diversity.

In the second study, the researchers asked 307 working adults to evaluate a fictitious female or male manager after the manager had hired either a woman or a man. The researchers found that both female and male participants rated the fictitious female manager as less effective when she hired a female applicant than when she hired a man. As in the first study, it made no difference to the evaluations of the fictitious male manager whether he hired a woman or a man.
In summarizing their conclusions in the Harvard Business Review, the researchers wrote:

We know that in the U.S., there is still a power and status gap between men and women. High status groups, mainly white men, are given freedom to deviate from the status quo because their competence is assumed based on their membership in the high status group. In contrast, when women advocate for other women, it highlights their low-status demographics, activating the stereotype of incompetence, and leads to worse performance ratings.

What Can Be Done to Ameliorate the Risks of Advocating for Other Women?

Anne Welsh McNulty, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, thinks women should simply ignore the career risks of advocating for other women. She writes:

The antidote to being penalized for sponsoring women may just be to do it more—and to do it vocally, loudly, and proudly—until we’re able to change perceptions. There are massive benefits for the individual and the organization when women support each other.

McNulty’s recommendation carries substantial risk in light of the studies we cited earlier. Doubling down on advocating for the advancement of other women may be a viable strategy for senior women leaders who are secure in their positions. For women in middle and junior roles, however, it can have a real downside. That being so, how can women advocate for other women and not risk a career penalty?

There are at least two effective, relatively low risk strategies available. First, women can channel their mutual support and advocacy through their workplace networks, whether these are formal or informal. When women come together to talk and share their experiences, they see that many of their career difficulties are not unique to them but are common obstacles to the advancement of all women’s careers. Realizing they are not alone can provide women with positive benefits by increasing their self-confidence. By working together, women can concentrate their energies on concrete steps to move forward as individuals and to overcome the systemic obstacles negatively affecting women’s careers generally.

The second strategy is to enlist senior male leaders as allies in the effort to advocate for the advancement of women. Obtaining committed male allies is an important step toward changing the discriminatory nature of gendered workplaces. When men stick up for women at meetings, ask women to elaborate on the points they make, praise women for their contributions, and make sure that women are seen as valued team participants, this sends a strong message to other men that women are serious players. And, when men call out incivility, snubs, and microaggressions against women, they can often be effective in ending these biased practices.

Women may be at their best when, as Sophia A. Nelson has written they know other women “are at their sides and have their backs,” but active male support is also a very effective way to break through gender bias.

The Way Forward

Women working together collectively with strong male allies have the potential to make significant progress toward moving more women up and into senior leadership positions. It is important, however, for everyone to recognize advocacy is not enough. The focus needs to be on changing workplace practices and policies to interrupt the discriminatory operation of gender bias by stripping as much subjectivity as possible out of the assignment, evaluation, compensation, and promotion processes. Gender bias can only do its discriminatory mischief when gut instinct, personal preference, and feelings of comfort and familiarity are allowed to play major roles in career-affecting decisions.

It must also be remembered that the negative consequences for women’s career opportunities of there being concentrated, entrenched male power at the top of our major organizations is not going to be changed overnight through fundamental, culture-altering changes. Significant gender diversity in senior leadership is only going to come about through what Shelley Correll at Stanford University calls “small wins,” that is, “concrete, implementable actions … of moderate importance [that] produce visible results.” When a small win is achieved, “it often creates new allies and makes visible the next target of change.”

When women work collectively with male allies to rid their organizations of subjective evaluations and concentrate on small wins, women supporting other women would no longer be dangerous to their careers.

About the Authors

Andrea S. Kramer and Alton B. Harris are authors of It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace: Women’s Conflict At Work and the Bias That Built It (Nicholas Brealey/Hachette 2019). Andie and Al have both served in senior management positions and have in-depth experience with all aspects of personnel management including recruiting, hiring and firing, individual and team supervision, compensation, and promotion. For more than 30 years they have worked to promote gender equality in the workplace.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

/by

Voice of Experience: Adina Brownstein, Managing Director, Barclays Investment Bank

Adina BrownsteinWhen you start your career in your 20s, you think you have to do everything by yourself, says Barclays’ Adina Brownstein.

However, before long, she notes, working collaboratively evolves your thinking, and you realize that having someone help you with your work is a benefit, rather than a risk. This co-creation also helps you build relationships, which are crucial down the road. “Having firm and industry sources who can help you out when you have a question is invaluable, and something you could never imagine when you’re starting out.”

A Non-Linear Career Brings Success

Those relationships have helped bolster Brownstein throughout her career. While her path has been built on diverse experiences, there is a thread that runs throughout—taking on new challenges, all different, but all including her core skillset. While she adroitly changed industries and types of roles, in each she brought her expertise in building relationships and exercising soft skills, then learned the necessary technical skills along the way.

“I believe that anyone can learn the content of a role if they have the willingness. But at the core, you must have strong writing and communication skills and the ability to flex your style to deal with different stakeholders.”

The first part of Brownstein’s career was in the telecommunications industry, the latter part spent at KPMG Consulting. In 2007 after she had started her family, she realized the life of a consultant had become a challenge; she started looking for a new opportunity and delved into her resume from a skills and toolkit perspective, finding commonalities in the work she’d done with clients and in the regulatory space.

She realized client management and regulatory knowledge was a good fit for large-scale program management and client management projects, and before long got a call from a friend at JP Morgan, who knew of a division that needed those two skills sets. In her new role, Brownstein was working on a multi-million dollar program that used her skills in managing multiple work streams and external and internal stakeholders.

Soon after, the financial crisis hit and her skill in working with large regulatory programs went from being an added value to a critical service. In 2010 she was recruited to Barclays, where she first managed a large regulatory program, and was quickly asked to work on a new regulatory request to create a resolution plan to unwind the broker/dealer function in an orderly fashion. They learned from the ground up, working hand-in-hand with consultants and attorneys; then with the Federal Reserve and the FDIC and also the Bank of England for a UK perspective on what resolution plan should include.

“It was exciting and daunting at the same time,” she says. “None of the jobs I did at that time were what I thought I was going to do, but I learned what I needed to.”

Before long it was clear that the relevance around financial services and regulation was more a requirement than a driving force. She saw a great opportunity to move to American Express as the head of regulatory relations, where she could again start something from scratch—a skill she was known for: learning quickly and helping businesses adapt. She had kept in touch with her Barclays colleagues and eventually was asked to come back in a similar role, as Head of Recovery and Resolution planning in the United States, also working with UK counterparts.

She finds it thrilling to be part of a space where she can have a seat at the table. “It’s exciting to be an advocate who can meet with regulators and share insight; we hope that our work is influencing regulation as they are tailoring rules in today’s political climate.”

Creating a Better Workplace through Mentoring and Coaching

As the mom of two daughters, Brownstein hopes that things will have evolved by the time they are in her seat. She finds that although the issues of pay gap and responsibility have improved, we are not yet to the point of equality.

She knows that different industries face different challenges, and in financial services, for example, it’s not the just the people but the nature of the work that can make balance challenging. Yet while it will never be a 9-to-5 job, Brownstein sees improvement via initiatives designed to promote better work/life balance and flexible work schedules.

As part of her commitment to an improved workplace, Brownstein believes that it’s vital to invest the time to coach and mentor. “I’ve learned you have to figure out your management style and how you want your team to perceive you, which allows you to build a collaborative group that’s adaptive,” she says. “I am really proud of my current team and our reputation for our ability to help people on different projects and engagements.” And, she adds, not only did she get to build her current team from scratch, but she has been able to help them evolve and grow, which pays dividends in a cohesive work environment, where team members will gladly abandon plans as needed to help one another.

And she shares her mentoring skills outside of her division, too, as a member of the Women’s Initiative Network steering committee that focuses on engagement and development. For the past few years she has helped with a group mentoring cohort of five to seven more junior women, where she hosts a series of mentoring sessions that cover topics that are immediately applicable to their current job status. “Helping the next generation is invaluable; even though it takes more time at the moment, the payoff is lasting.”

A supporter of the firm’s Encore! program, she recently hired a woman who had been temporarily out of the workforce. Barclays’ program is different than some in that anyone who sponsors an Encore employee has to have head count availability for them, making it a true path to a career option.

And she just joined a reverse mentoring program with a junior employee, eager to get their perspective and how they see things from a different lens.

An active volunteer, Brownstein has served on various boards with the Jewish Federation in MetroWest New Jersey, this year sitting on the allocations committee. She was recently asked to serve on the advisory board for the LEAD Program, an organization which provides high potential teens of diverse backgrounds with the opportunity to spend time on a college campus and meet with companies to learn more about different skillsets that will be needed in the workplace.

Tennis is her go-to for relaxation. And with two teens, including one a senior who is heading to college, Brownstein appreciates all the time she can enjoy with her family.

/by

Six Differentiating Tools Every Personal Brand Needs

Women-on-Computer 1

Guest Contributed by Elizabeth Harr

In a recent article, I talked about the steps required for creating your personal brand strategy.

In this article, I’ll cover how to design the supporting tools and infrastructure you’ll need to really bring your brand to life in a differentiated fashion.

Tool #1: Media Kit. I see this quite often – executives trying to get placements as a keynote speaker or panelist, but to no avail. Often times, firms overlook the importance of a media kit – a go-to place where speaking committees can easily access downloadable headshots, bios of different lengths, and access to published work or speaking samples. More than that though, a media kit is a vetting committee’s window into what their audience might experience in their exposure to you as an expert. For that reason, as the development of your personal brand strategy progresses, consider assembling public speaking clips into a video reel – it need only be a few minutes long, but this really gives speaking committees a sense of how you command the stage. It also gives prospective clients an excellent idea of what it might be like to work with you.

Tool #2: Polish up your bio and website. Boost the credibility of your bio and website by adding such features as recent articles and presentations you’ve made, as well as any recognitions you’ve received or awards you’ve won — basically, whatever could help convince your audience that you’re the genuine article, and worthy of their limited time.

Tool #3. Get ready to blog. Here again, your path depends on your level of independence. If you’re with a firm that has a blog, learn how you can become a regular contributor. If you need approval from others in the organization, explain your goal, and then work with the people who can help you get exposure. If you’re setting up your own blog, find and invest in the resources you need to make it happen. Why a blog? A well-written blog allows open access (i.e. no one has to give you an email in exchange for reading your blog) to your personal brand – it’s the path of least resistance audiences will use to experience your expertise.

Tool #4. Add conversion tools. To turn web visitors and blog readers into leads (one of your key goals), offer them something that’s so compelling, they’ll provide their name and email address in exchange for it. Typically, this is a more substantial type of content, such as an educational guide, whitepaper or e-book. After you create this content, place it behind a registration form on your site or blog. Make sure to include an enticing downloading offer to readers (see example at right). To be on the safe side, consider including language with your form explaining that the reader will be receiving additional emails containing valuable educational materials and advice — and that they can cancel at any time.

Tool #5. Customize your profiles on social media. Start by completing your LinkedIn profile, which is by far the most important platform for professional services experts. Next, look for active groups to join that people in your target audience tend to frequent. Twitter is another platform to consider joining, as it can help you promote your content. In some cases, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms may be helpful as well, although our research shows that most experts focus their limited time and effort elsewhere.

Tool #6. Practice and grow your skills. Make a habit of working on your new skills by carving out a little time every day to work on one or two pieces at a time. Remember, this is a business commitment, not a hobby. That means it’s not only okay, but actually important, to devote part of each workday to upgrading your personal brand. It’s an ongoing project — and one that will never end.

Now, It’s Launch Time!

Now it’s time to give your plan one more read — and then, dive in! Implementing it will be slow going at first, but it’s important to get your tools and resources in place before you set out. If you are an expert who seeks to become a leader in your industry, the roadmap I’ve laid out here can help you get on the right path, and keep on it.

The secret to launching a successful personal branding strategy is to break down the work into manageable pieces. Little by little, you will start to see results — a few email inquiries starting to arrive, a speaking opportunity or two popping up, and hopefully, a growing tide of new followers. At some point, people will begin asking to meet with you to discuss their particular challenge. And eventually, a few will decide to hire you and your firm — based on nothing more than your reputation and visibility. Take it from me: seeing that steady progress will make all the hard work more than worth it.

You’ve got your strategy, now put it to work!

About the Author

Elizabeth Harr, Partner at Hinge, is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive with a background in strategic planning, branding and growth for professional services. Elizabeth co-founded a Microsoft solutions provider company and grew it into a thriving organization that became known for its expertise in Microsoft customer relationship management.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

/by

How Remote Work Helps Boost Your Company Culture

Guest Contributed by Michael Volkmann

Only 10 years ago did the idea of remote work seem like an outlandish proposition.

Recently, however, the tide is beginning to shift. With remote work becoming more feasible, and employees becoming more receptive, remote work is due for a boon.

For some, remote work is still a strange idea but the benefits are becoming obvious. With companies as large as Yahoo! taking part in the remote work revolution, its appeal is growing rapidly. While many employers are still doubtful about the logistics of remote work, the cultural trend towards it is apparent. What are the benefits of remote work? Some are more apparent than others, but all in all remote work is cost-effective and productive for companies of all sizes.

One of the more obvious benefits of remote work is the reduction in cost for most businesses. When the bulk of a business’s employees telecommute the need for an office is greatly reduced. Decreasing the need for a large office with multiple cubicles has a positive effect on a business’s finances. While the monetary side of it is nice, the important part might be how it affects the culture.

In telecommute environments, there are less office politics and more working. Those companies that have large telecommute employee bases are oftentimes immune to the machinations of office personalities. There is less self-aggrandizing and less cutthroat behavior. The culture of remote work typically leans toward a more progressive and open view.

Those environments are generally less about ladder climbing and more about the work speaking for itself. The benefit of less office gossip and interpersonal drama is immense as it tends to lead to friendlier interactions and work-focused employees. When the weight of office drama and expectation is lifted from an employee they tend to perform better and are happier. In the new age of work, happiness is very important to employees.

Those who work in remote companies post the highest job satisfaction ratings. What employers sometimes fail to realize is that office culture can weigh heavily on employees and reduce the comfort they feel doing their job. By taking the office away, companies can create very positive and uplifting work environments.

On the subject of money, businesses that use remote work forces typically post higher profit margins. This is due to a number of reasons, but one of the largest is the lack of expenditure. This, coupled with higher productivity, leads to an inevitable increase in revenue. Another strong factor in this is that remote work also leads to less employee turnover.

Companies that use telecommuting have more satisfied employees that are less likely to quit and, because of their increased productivity, are less likely to be fired as a result.

Companies that adopt early are in for an evergreen opportunity for profit. The reduced cost and better productivity of remote work is creating a business environment that is ideal for revenue generation. This is helping the popularity of the model tremendously. In a few years telecommuting will go from being a fringe idea to the secret for a growing revenue-generating business including companies such as WordPress, Toptal, and many other tech companies.

On the employee-focused side of things, there are a number of great benefits as well. One thing that helps employees tremendously is the reduced cost of not having to go to an office. No more shopping for work-specific clothes or burning all that gas driving to and from work. For those that work telecommute jobs, traffic becomes a thing of the past.

Being able to work in the comfort of your own home without office politics or over-eager managers gives employees a comfortable work environment. This can also improve the health of employees as they can focus on the most crucial tasks and get more done than if they had the luxury to chatter with coworkers in a traditional working environment. This also works well for aging employees as the physical requirements to go to work lessen tremendously.

For new families as well, telecommute work can provide a way to generate income while not being away from their families. This employee-oriented style of work creates a positive environment while also being a more generous employer strategy.

With a positive impact on both profits and employees, remote work is clearly a beneficial pursuit. The remote revolution is coming in fast and companies keeping up will be rewarded greatly. The strategy of telecommute employment pays off incredibly well. It is a more positive environment for both owners and employees than a traditional office environment.

The numbers for remote work and the feedback from employees strengthens the argument. The new age of work is heavily focused on employee happiness and satisfaction. No other strategy accomplishes this like telecommute work. As remote work continues to grow, and technology follows, remote work will become the rule. The world is ready to work from home and you should be too.

About the Author

Michael Volkmann is a tech entrepreneur with a focus on business operations and finance. He has worked with many small businesses helping them with their M&A for over 6 years. When not in front of the monitor thinking about the future of AI and robotics, he spends his time snorkeling and traveling.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of glasshammer2.wpengine.com

/by

Thalia Chryssikou, Partner, Goldman Sachs, Securities Division

Thalia ChryssikouAfter graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a PhD, Thalia Chryssikou, now a partner in Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division, had initially expected to pursue a career in academia.

However, she wanted to explore other opportunities, and joined Goldman Sachs in 1998 following an internship in the firm’s Risk Department.

“While I love teaching and cherish opportunities to share learnings, I realized early on that working alongside smart, capable, energetic people is what motivates me the most,” she says. “After joining the firm, I appreciated the power and energy of a smart collective – ultimately, it’s not about an individual, it’s about what we all collectively are able to achieve.”

Discussing the switch from academia to financial services, Chryssikou also notes: “I fell in love with Goldman Sachs’ goal-oriented research culture the summer before completing my PhD. I had the opportunity to engage in innovative quantitative and analytical work, as well as experience the teamwork culture ingrained in the organization.”

Continuously Reinventing Oneself

“Over time, as the firm expanded into new businesses and grew its client footprint, my ability to keep reinventing myself kept me engaged at Goldman Sachs,” notes Chryssikou.

Today, Chryssikou is the global co-head of Sales Strats & Structuring across FICC and Equities, a 250-person team spanning different regions and client segments. She says of her team’s work: “Our focus is centered around three pillars: a) providing solutions for both institutional and corporate clients, either on the investing or financing side; b) curating market and industry specific content for our clients; and c) developing client-solution digital platforms to engage on both structuring and execution services.”

Describing how she expects the business might change in the future, Chryssikou references Apple’s transformative effect on day-to-day business: “At Goldman Sachs, we’re trying to bring financial professionals into the digital world by allowing them to simplify and scale their business services utilizing our content and risk management expertise.”

Chryssikou acknowledges the anxiety that technology and automation could disrupt existing industries and replace jobs, but says she believes it is an “opportunity, not a threat.” She goes on to note: “When I began my career, providing internal analytics to clients was viewed as disruptive – however, we learned that offering analytics was a significant value-add for clients. My team continues to embody that philosophy, allowing us to serve clients more effectively and spend more time developing value-add services.”

Working to “Support, Attract and Retain” Women in Technology

Working alongside another female co-head, Chryssikou has remained focused throughout her career on ensuring greater female representation within her team.

“When I began my career, there were very few women on the trading desk, especially in leadership positions – it was a male-dominated environment,” Chryssikou says.

“When I reflect on the journey we’ve made, and the current gender breakdown on our team, I am proud of the evolution my co-head and I have overseen,” she adds. “We’ve made a real effort to support, attract and retain female hires.”

Chryssikou acknowledges the need for ongoing focus – by both Goldman Sachs and society at large – to improve female representation in technology roles.

“We all need to invest in and encourage more women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to deepen the pool of female talent,” she notes. “Technology is creating a level playing field where women can engage and excel.”

Have Clarity on The Mark You Want to Leave

Chryssikou recommends that others identify the mark they want to leave on their organization.

“Have clarity on the mark you want to leave and reflect upon how you want others to perceive you – do you want to be viewed as an innovator, business leader, detailed-oriented? Understanding how you are perceived by others – combined with tenacity and grit – will allow you to build on your strengths and continue to evolve in your professional career.”

Chryssikou also acknowledges the importance of actively managing your career in order to develop skills and work on projects that will help you succeed, as well as your team.

“Embracing your role with passion and commitment is important,” she says. “Diversity of thought and skillset is an imperative ingredient to a team’s long-term success, complementing the collaborative nature we seek across the firm.”

Combining Work and Family

When she’s not on the trading floor, Chryssikou is a mom to two sons – a 17-year old and a 14-year old. Reflecting upon her experience taking maternity leave, she says: “Goldman Sachs was an extremely supportive place to have children and my managers helped create an environment where I could balance my professional aspirations with our family needs.”

Outside of work, Chryssikou has continued to travel extensively with her family, collect contemporary art, and give back to her academic and cultural community.

/by

Voice of Experience: Marianne Bachynski, Chief Transformation Officer

Always be networking, suggests Marianne Bachynski.

Marianne Bachynski “Men are so good at this, and often we as women are so busy trying to deal with the work at hand that we don’t make the time to engage. But you must always treat your career as a project. Ask yourself if you are in a promotable position, and if not, determine what you have to do to get there.”

The reason is simple, she says. “My father always reminded me that you are the only person who knows your entire history and can best tell your story. Make it known what you’re good at, what you have achieved and what you want to do. Build a personal brand.” For example, she found that people would make assumptions about what roles she might like as a working mom. It’s up to you to dispel inaccurate assumptions and voice your interests, particularity to new managers.

Finding Her Niche in Technology

As Bachynski explains, she “grew up at Morgan Stanley” where she spent 25 years from the start of her career. Always focused on technology, she began as an application developer, supporting many different businesses on the sell side and then pivoted to the buy side. The technology on the investment management side wasn’t nearly as mature as the sell side, so she found it to be an ideal opportunity to spur growth and innovation.

When she was moved to support investment management, she found they had so much capacity to evolve, making it akin to a startup embedded in the bigger firm. She built it out, front to back, creating a team from zero to 700. Since some of them came from acquisitions along the way, she learned about integrating companies both technically and culturally. “We had to design a Brady Bunch-style blended culture that could work well together because we couldn’t execute or communicate effectively if we didn’t have a common way of working,” Bachynski explains.

She eventually moved to Citibank, providing technology solutions to external clients for whom they covered investment management, private equity and hedge funds. She reveled in the fact that it was such a global company, with clients in 160 countries. She then became COO of North America Wholesale Banking at Rabobank, which specialized in food, farming and agriculture. She then spent a year at a fintech company, FIS, which supports banks of all sizes with banking and payments and brokerage technology. She enjoyed her role creating products that serve multiple clients and being more directly tied to revenue.  But when Marianne was offered the lead role in a multiyear transformation program working for the CEO of the #1 most innovative InsureTech firm, she couldn’t resist.

Bachynski helps transform companies to become more agile. She recognizes the importance of speed, which in many ways is replacing size and scale as the key metric.

More Gains To Be Made

Bachynski finds it sobering how little has changed for women in technology from when she began. For instance, her daughter, who is 25 and went to MIT, works at Instagram as a data scientist, and she is still many times the only woman in the room.

“Women need to come together and support each other and have meaningful dialogue,” Bachynski says, adding that she has had few tech peers who were women.

She advises women to take the advice she heard early on from one of the few senior women she worked with. “Don’t ever apologize. If you must leave early, just walk out the door.” In other words, take control of defining the critical parameters for your work-life balance.

Bachynski is a big believer in mentor programs, where you are assigned to someone more senior outside of your purview. Mentorships are an opportunity to gain a different perspective and a chance to glean valuable insights on what really goes on in senior management. “It’s so enlightening to create a line of sight to the big picture,” she says.

Her routine has always included one hour a day all to herself, which she typically devotes to working out. In the past she has run marathons, which she found helped build both physical and emotional stamina for the work roller coaster you often ride on; and the discipline allows you to think calmly and look to the long term.

Even when her work was calling, Bachynski made the effort to be home at a decent hour every night to spend time with her children and held sacred time each year to take a trip. “We intentionally chose to travel internationally, because it allows you to experience and learn about so many ways to live your life, and it’s invigorating to step out of our element and focus on each other. Vacations are critical to reenergize.”

/by

Creating Your Personal Brand — One Step at a Time

personal brand

Guest contributed by Elizabeth Harr

Personal brands are a hot topic in executive circles for good reason.

Just like a firm’s brand, a well-developed personal brand allows professionals a meaningful way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Built correctly, a personal brand is neither self-indulgent nor self-promotional – but instead is a platform for promoting specialized expertise. And expertise – particularly specialized expertise – is consistently a top criteria buyers of professional services use when selecting a firm with which to do business.

While it’s hard to argue with the merits of having a strong personal brand, the more challenging conversation is around the specific steps and strategies needed to make it happen. If I had to offer one guiding principle for all executives to embrace as they embark in their own brand journey, it would be to employ purpose as your bouncer. This has come be a favorite mantra of my own ever since I heard it on a podcast from Whitney Johnson, the creator of the Disrupt Yourself podcast series. I love this expression because it’s a reminder that each of us is in charge of the multiple decisions we’ll have to make about our personal brand. What tools should you invest in? Where should you speak? What topics should you write about? What really should you be known for?

Adhering to a strict standard for how you evaluate personal branding decisions can make all the difference in time, in money you invest, and in how well you are received by the outside world. With purpose as the bouncer of your decisions, your personal brand will fill a void in the marketplace with a fresh and much-needed perspective on the problems your audience is trying to solve. Put another way, applying purpose – in the context of what matters most to whatever audience you seek visibility with – prevents you from adding to the noise, or worse, showing up as a generic jack-of-all-trades services provider.

Now everything I’ve said so far probably falls more under the category of philosophy rather than practical advice. However, with purpose as your gatekeeper and bouncer, implementing the following steps will be much easier and more effective. So let’s get to it.

Creating Your Personal Brand Strategy

Step 1: Understand where you’re starting from. Before you begin building your brand, you need to make an honest assessment of your brand’s existing qualities and level of visibility. Visibility can be defined in five distinct levels to help executives assess their baseline position, which in turn helps them stay realistic about how far they can climb. Are you at the level of a Resident Expert, where you’re known to a very small and defined circle? Or are you a Rising Star, where you’re just starting to expand your network and are becoming visible to a wider audience? It’s also important to define where you want to go. If your goal is to become a sought-out (and paid!) keynote speaker on the global stage for example and you’re barely past the first stage of your journey, you’ll be looking at an aggressive path forward that has a different investment of time and money relative to a goal of becoming highly regarded regional player for example.

The 5 visible firm levels

Figure 1: The Five Levels of Visibility

Step 2: Zero in on specialized expertise. Perhaps you are an expert in something already. That’s fine, but is your messaging for that expertise fairly broad (“M&A advisory,” for instance), or is it specialized (such as, “post-merger acquisition integration”)? If you haven’t done so yet, think about narrowing your focus. If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to pare down your services, at least try to be more tightly focused on which topics you write and speak about. Once you’ve done this, your ‘purpose bouncer’ should get busy, turning away any other blogging or speaking opportunities that don’t fit with the central thesis of your personal brand.

Step 3: Target a specific audience. What types of industries or organizations will be procuring your services? Who influences your buyers’ purchasing decisions? What positions within client firms will buy your services? The answers will dictate which people you should be communicating with in every blog post, speech, book, and webinar. Keep your audience in mind whenever you’re writing. It will help you stay on point, and attract the right kinds of prospects to your business.

Step 4: Find your own viewpoint. This essential step can help to differentiate your personal brand in a big way. If you can associate your personal brand with a specific issue, or lead with a point of view that’s controversial or counterintuitive, it’s often easier to attract attention. Doing so can also give you a unique perspective that will put your unmistakable stamp on each piece of content you develop.

Step 5: Select your tools. There are many choices — too many, in fact — for how you will push out messages to support your personal brand. The tools that tend to have the greatest effect on a personal brand fall within the three pillars of high-growth marketing: speaking, publishing, and networking (both in person and digitally through social media networks). The figure below depicts the top 10 most effective tools as well as their efficacy score on a scale of 0 – 10. As you can see, these run the gamut from having a personal website to publishing your own books. Of course, if you have experience with other tools, such as webinars or video, you can make them part of your plan as well.

10 effective tools

Figure 2. Personal banding tools ranked by impact (0 = least, 10 = greatest)

Step 6: Evaluate your skills — and be brutal. This may be the most difficult step — especially if you’re doing it yourself. It’s so hard to be objective about one’s own strengths and weaknesses. Try to honestly evaluate your proficiency in each of the skill areas shown in Figure 2. Is your writing as good as you think it is? How strong are you as a public speaker? Which skills need the most work? Prioritize these skills, and decide which ones you can work on by yourself, and which may require finding or hiring a teacher or mentor. And that brings me to…

Step 7: Build a support team. The great majority of us need at least some help on the personal branding journey, and many may actually need a great deal. So one of the first things you need to decide on is how you want to make the climb: as a truly solo ascent with just an oxygen tank, or accompanied by a team of Sherpas? When you’re part of a larger organization, you sometimes have the built-in support by way of ghostwriters, SEO experts, graphic designers and website developers. If you don’t have access to these skill sets, you can look to freelancers to fill any gaps. In either case, line up your resources early in your process so that you don’t have to spend time tracking them down when you really need them.

Crafting your personal brand around what really matters in the marketplace – expertise – is the first step. In a sister article, I’ll cover how to design the supporting infrastructure you’ll need to really bring your brand to life in the form of content, profiles, and bios. Afterall, a plan is only as good as its execution, which in turn can’t happen without a solidly built infrastructure.

About the Author

Elizabeth Harr, Partner at Hinge, is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive with a background in strategic planning, branding and growth for professional services. Elizabeth co-founded a Microsoft solutions provider company and grew it into a thriving organization that became known for its expertise in Microsoft customer relationship management.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

/by

Voice of Experience: Susan Light, Partner, Katten

Susan LightWhen Sue Light reflects on advice given to her over the years she acknowledges that sometimes it doesn’t become pertinent until you’ve been in the workforce long enough to see its value.

That’s why she recommends newer professionals focus on approaching a job with the goal of helping solve problems and offering solutions. She also stresses the importance of taking care of yourself. “I am happy to see this is becoming a bigger trend among younger professionals. It’s not weak to take a moment every now and then to focus on your physical and mental health. It’s imperative. If you are not taking care of yourself, you won’t be able to show up and take care of others. Plain and simple.”

Finding the Perfect Intersection of Experiences

While Ms. Light had originally planned to get her PhD in psychology, she changed course as grad school loomed and ended up attending law school at Boston University. She began her legal career as a prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office in New York, where she tried to verdict more than 50 felony cases and supervised the investigations and prosecutions of violent crimes. She spent seven years in what she describes as an “important and dynamic job,” learning every aspect of practicing law and simultaneously building strong ties with her colleagues.

She also earned her Master of Law at New York University School of Law in the evenings, focusing on securities and criminal law. Ms. Light was able to combine the specialties into a position that she says was “custom-made for her” at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as a trial attorney. Over the years she ascended the ranks and became a senior vice president in the NYSE’s enforcement division.

During her time there, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory organization of the securities industry, merged with NYSE’s regulation and formed the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Ms. Light stayed on in a similar position for an additional 11 years, helping run the enforcement division as senior vice president and chief counsel.

As a leader at FINRA and the NYSE, Ms. Light managed as many as 60 attorneys and investigators and negotiated dozens of global settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, state regulators and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Additionally, she partnered with foreign regulators on investigations into cross-national Ponzi schemes, with the Internal Revenue Service on investigations of improper tax dividends, with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation on investigations of penny stock fraud and market manipulation and with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on managed futures alternative investments investigations.

While she enjoyed her regulatory experience, last year she decided she wanted to experience private practice and joined Katten as a partner in its Financial Markets and Funds group.

“It’s been a great match, the people are terrific,” Ms. Light said. “Katten has a strong financial services department, and I brought my institutional knowledge of SEC and FINRA rules and regulations to enhance that area.” Clients appreciate the value she brings, given her extensive experience and insight in addressing complex legal and regulatory issues. Joining Katten has also presented the opportunity for Ms. Light to handle cryptocurrency and cybersecurity matters, building on her FINRA experience in those areas.

At Katten, Ms. Light provides clients with a regulator’s perspective and deep insights into the rules. Her time is divided between giving advice on rule interpretations and practices, conducting internal investigations and representing broker/dealers in SEC and FINRA proceedings. “I try to help my clients better understand what the regulator is required to consider and how that may impact their matter,” said Ms. Light. “I think this approach gives them a greater level of insight and confidence when working with FINRA or the SEC.”

And that is one of the professional achievements she is most proud of—being able to connect her many roles, leveraging her experience to provide value to her clients. In addition, she finds a lot of satisfaction in the opportunities she has had through her senior executive leadership roles to mentor and guide so many people whom she has been proud to see have been promoted and succeed.

Building Important Bridges

While she appreciates the level of trust she has established with the regulatory agencies, Ms. Light likewise values the trust she has developed with colleagues. “You need someone at work who will give you a reality check and advice,” she says. Since she is relatively new at Katten, she has been proactively calling women partners to get to know them.

Ms. Light says she has been very fortunate over her career as the men who may have been dismissive of her achievements as a woman were few and far between. “I never missed out on any opportunities by being a woman; if I didn’t get a promotion, it wasn’t because I was a woman,” she notes. And similarly, she says she has been fortunate to work with many role models who helped paved the way.

Currently she appreciates the focus that Katten puts on diversity and inclusion, and has become a member of the firm’s Women’s Leadership Forum, which supports the growth of women attorneys through various initiatives, programs and events. “The firm is very attuned to internal diversity but also recognizes a diverse workforce results in more innovative solutions to the legal and business challenges faced by our clients,” she says.

Ms. Light is proud to be part of a family of lawyers; she met her husband in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office and he just retired as an adjunct law professor. Her son is currently a market surveillance manager at the NYSE while attending law school at night, and her daughter works in project management and is applying to law school. The family remains close—having weekly lunches, getting together on the weekends when they can and traveling together.

Her daughter recently found a book of poems Ms. Light’s parents had given her. One that particularly resonated as she read it with hindsight was called “Don’t Ever” by Laine Parsons, which reads in part, “Don’t ever forget that you can achieve so many of the things you can imagine. It’s not as hard as it seems. Don’t ever stop loving don’t ever stop believing, don’t ever stop dreaming your dreams. “It’s great advice for any professional, and a good reminder of what we need to figure out as we go along our paths,” says Ms. Light.

“The secret to work-life harmony is not balance so much as navigating what’s most important at any given time,” Ms. Light says. “Sometimes that’s the case you’re working on and sometimes that’s your child’s birthday. It is possible to be fantastic at both roles.”

/by

Voice of Experience: Mindy Mercaldo, Head of U.S. Branch Channel, Citi

Mindy Mercaldo“You can do anything,” Mindy Mercaldo reminds women.

“There are so many possibilities to seize opportunities, rather than waiting for them to come to you,” she says, encouraging women to be open about what they want to achieve and finding advocates to help with those aspirations.

“You have to put your voice in the room,” she adds. “Sometimes women hedge, but your opinions matter and people need to hear them.”

Climbing the Ranks as a Lifelong Banker

Mercaldo began her career in retail banking as a Customer Service Representative while in college. She loved helping people with their banking needs and after graduating she entered a branch banking management program and started her career with Meridian Bank in her native Philadelphia. Throughout her career, it’s been the mix of meaningful experiences with customers and her teams that has fueled her inspiration.

In her 30-year career, she’s been through three bank mergers and four acquisitions; been a small business banking leader, retail banking director and division manager. She also spent eight years in retail bank sales and strategy. Currently based in Chicago, Mercaldo was promoted this summer to oversee Citibank’s entire US branch network. It’s an honor to assist in the retail bank’s transformation and to lead such a dynamic team, she says.

Mercaldo finds that developing her team motivates and inspires her, and reminds her of those who invested in her along the way.

A breast cancer survivor, Mercaldo took time off when she was diagnosed and was gratified to have someone who could easily step into her shoes. “When you invest in people, it helps them as individuals and also elevates the entire team,” she says, citing one of the transformational lessons she learned from the book Boys in the Boat, the true story about nine-working class rowers from Depression-era Washington state who overcame steep odds to win gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

“I really believe in the idea of surrounding yourself with great people,” she says, adding that it’s a rewarding experience on both a personal and professional level to be part of their development and success. “I am so proud when someone I’ve worked with reaches a major career goal or milestone; it makes me think about a small part I might have played in their advancement and those moments when I was able to be part of their journey.”

That has helped reinforce the importance of partnership and collaboration with others, and led her to realize that it’s not just working hard that gets you to the next job. “There are so many interdependencies in our work, because we all touch the customer in some way and have to work comprehensively,” Mercaldo says. “I learned along the way that bringing others into the conversation creates a better work environment and outcomes,” she says, noting that Citi’s culture encourages teamwork that enables economic growth and progress.

Currently she is excited about the work the bank is doing to help meet customer banking needs in the future and how the organization is responding by transforming to help make their lives better.

“Client needs are complex; despite the growth of digital capabilities, they still want trusted, personalized advice from their banker and often turn to a human to help them make critical decisions,” she says adding that the concept of marrying those two components is exciting. “The secret of change is to focus all your energy on building the new rather than fighting the old,” she says, quoting the author Dan Millman.

Mentoring as a Way Of Life

In addition to the work she does with her team, Mercaldo has been an active mentor in Citi’s Chicago Women’s Network. She also serves on the steering committee for the Asian Heritage Network, a group that helps promote a culture of diversity and inclusion within Citi. “As a leader, it’s important to be involved in these affinity networks and broaden our sense of inclusion,” she says. She has also found Citi’s Leadership Development programs to be a rewarding experience focused on creating environments for women to grow their leadership experiences. “Women mentor and care about the advancement of other women; we have a culture of supporting other women in their career goals and objectives,” she says.

When it comes to family, Mercaldo shares that her 14-year-old daughter is an expert at evaluating customer service after growing up listening to her stories. When she’s not at the ice rink with her husband cheering on their daughter, Mercaldo and her family also love to travel, cook and enjoy water sports.

/by